Dean Balaji Rajagopalan’s 100-day sprint

This article originally appeared in the Winter 2024 issue of Mizzou Magazine.

Balaji Rajagopalan hit the ground running — and listening and learning — July 5 as the new dean of the Trulaske College of Business. He immediately set out to meet all the college’s faculty and staff and as many of its alumni as possible. He also launched a planning group to bubble up ideas for Trulaske’s future. 

In one-on-one sessions with faculty and staff, Rajagopalan takes a comprehensive approach. “It’s easy to gather facts but much more important to understand people holistically — why people do what they do, what makes them tick and what do they do for fun,” he says, adding that, at Trulaske, avocations range from climbing mountains to keeping pet rabbits.

During the dean’s first 100 days, he has met just as many alumni. “Many come from humble beginnings in Missouri towns such as Moberly, Puxico and Marceline,” Rajagopalan says. Whether they left school for Wall Street or went back home to build their entrepreneurial ventures, they have one thing in common, he says. “They attribute their success to what they experienced at Mizzou and Trulaske and believe in supporting the next generation of students.”

Rajagopalan has charged the strategy planning group to dream “big ideas” about student success and faculty research in a rapidly changing world. Stay tuned in spring 2024 as new initiatives are revealed and implemented.